Kevin Drum 🕸

A study last month done by Swiss Re for Waymo suggests that self-driving Waymo cars are far, far safer than human drivers: I have long recommended that if you want to evaluate the state of autonomous cars, look at Waymo. Forget about Tesla or Cruise or any of the others. They may do certain things ...continue reading "Waymo’s driverless cars are really safe"

The New York Times has a piece today about people whose bank accounts are suddenly closed with no warning. The reason is that they've done something that triggers one or more Suspicious Activity Reports from their bank. The nature of the SARs is never revealed, but they often lead to banks deciding not to do ...continue reading "Suspicious activity in America has skyrocketed"

The Washington Post says today that a second Trump term would be all about revenge and more revenge: In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of ...continue reading "What the United States needs is more revenge"

Here's the percentage of the workforce employed by the federal government: It dropped from 3.5% of the total workforce in 1955 to 1.4% of the workforce at the end of 1999. Since January 2000 it's increased from 1.44% to 1.49%. Aside from the decennial census blips, employment generally goes up during and after recessions and ...continue reading "Raw data: Federal government workers"

Egypt has been a full partner with Israel in the Gaza blockade ever since it began. They have also been resolute about banning immigration from Gaza to Egypt, including refugees in the current war. Why? Over at New York, Benjamin Hart asks Steven Cook: I think that the Egyptian position on this is a principled ...continue reading "Egypt and the Gaza Strip"

Jon Chait remarks on a phrase that's become common on the right recently: “The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, the former Trump budget director who is orchestrating his planning.... A conservative who knows what time it is recognizes that the left is poised to permanently seize power, and ...continue reading "Do you know what time it is?"

Damon Linker today in the New York Times: A coalition of intellectual catastrophists on the American right is ... giving the next generation of Republican officeholders, senior advisers, judges and appointees explicit permission and encouragement to believe that the country is on the verge of collapse. Some catastrophists take it a step further and suggest ...continue reading "Right-wing catastrophism is now an intellectual movement too"

No special reason for posting this. I just felt like it. It shows primary federal spending (i.e., not including interest) and revenue since 2000: In the early 2000s spending and revenue were in sync. Then, thanks partly to a mild recession and partly to George Bush's tax cuts, revenue fell. The same thing happened again ...continue reading "Raise taxes or cut Social Security and Medicare? Those are your choices."

Over at National Review, Andy McCarthy wanders ever further down the rabbit hole of abject lunacy: On the latest episode of his podcast The McCarthy Report, National Review Institute fellow Andy McCarthy reacted to the revelation that Joe Biden’s brother, James, wrote him a $40,000 check when a $400,000 payment from a Chinese concern came ...continue reading "National Review: Biden is a clandestine agent of China"

I saw yet another article today about the "deeply unpopular" Joe Biden. You know what that means: I'm going to put up the latest version of The Chart: Are you tired of seeing this? Tough. I'm going to keep posting it over and over and over until either (a) the nonsense about Biden's unpopularity stops, ...continue reading "President Biden is not especially unpopular, part 1 million"

Here is Hilbert playing with his string toy last night as Charlie looks on. This is by far their favoritest toy—aside from each other, of course.

The Guardian today writes about the possibility that AI will eventually take over nearly all jobs: Elon Musk’s suggestion to Rishi Sunak that society could reach a point where “no job is needed” and “you can do a job if you want a job … but the AI will do everything” revives a debate on ...continue reading "The end of work is coming. Deal with it."

For the past half century, an increase in the unemployment rate of half a point from a new low has been an unfailing indicator that a recession is either underway or very close: There are no exceptions to this rule. If it doesn't happen, no recession. If it does happen, recession. This month marks a ...continue reading "Is a recession getting close?"

The American economy gained 150,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at an anemic 60,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate ticked up again to 3.9%. The jobs estimates for August and September were revised downward by 79,000. The ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs through October"

For Republicans, one of the nice things about their waning support for Ukraine is that it means they can credibly threaten to vote against it unless Democrats throw in some goodies for them. As usual, the goodies they want involve border security. Politico reports that one concession President Biden is considering is a tweak to ...continue reading "Reining in illegal immigration doesn’t have to be either punitive or difficult"

I've seen several TV interviews with Hamas leaders over the past week, and I have to say I'm surprised they even do interviews. al-Qaeda never did interviews, and with good reason. Even a friendly reporter is likely to have some tough questions for outfits like al-Qaeda or Hamas. In any case, I've now seen one ...continue reading "Destroying Hamas is fine, but the demands of basic human decency haven’t suddenly been repealed"

The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried was long and complicated, but the jury's deliberations weren't. After a few short hours they've already returned a guilty verdict: The conviction cements Bankman-Fried as one of the largest financial fraudsters in history, whose victims suffered nearly $10 billion in losses after FTX misappropriated customer funds to spend lavishly on ...continue reading "SBF is guilty"

This is all ancient and well-trod history, but it sure seems like a lot of people no longer have much understanding of how Israel originated, and why it is where it is. So here's a very brief Beginner's Refresher to Israel. Before the First World War, the area we now call the Middle East was ...continue reading "A Beginner’s Guide to the creation of Israel"

We were lucky that the eclipse a couple of weeks ago lined up nicely with leaf season in Colorado. The scenery was chock full of brilliant yellow aspens, like this copse a little north of Durango. It was all very pretty.

Our new Speaker of the House is not off to a great start: Speaker Mike Johnson floated a fresh idea for heading off a shutdown after the Nov. 17 deadline — one that would seemingly create a series of rolling funding threats and could draw opposition from across the political spectrum. ....While it’s not totally ...continue reading "Mike Johnson has another brainstorm"